NEW DELHI,
DEC. 3.
Fifteen people, including two Sales Tax employees, have been arrested by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch on charges of evading taxes totalling Rs. 2.93 crores by showing bogus trade worth Rs. 15.57 crores using stolen Sales Tax forms. Several documents have been recovered from their possession.

According to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (EOW), Prabhakar, he received a complaint from a Sales Tax Department officer, J.N. Sharma, alleging that Sales Tax forms from July 2002 to April 2003 had gone missing from the Ward No. 4 office. These forms were never issued to any company, but the office records revealed that several dealers had claimed sales tax exemption against them on goods purportedly sold by them. Similar complaints were received from other wards.

The police said Kiran, who kept record of the forms, had allegedly manipulated the data to evade detection. The accused misused the stolen forms to show bogus deal to the tune of Rs. 15.57 crores, against which they got an exemption of Rs. 2.93 crores from the Sales Tax department.